О. V. Kurashev

For optimal cultivation of gooseberries, the presence of industrial-type cultivars plays an important role, therefore, the study of economically useful parameters, such as resistance to diseases and pests, productivity, high commercial qualities of berries, suitability for combine harvesting is relevant. Consequently, the goal of the present research was to study remote gooseberry hybrids obtained on the genetic basis of a mighty gooseberry species (Grossularia robusta) involved in hybridization according to the main economic and biological characteristics.Selected gooseberry forms obtained from the remote (interspecific) hybridization withGrossularia robustaspecies were the studied material.The degree of damage by the American powdery mildew, the quality of berries and suitability for machine harvesting were assessed. As a result of the long – term study of hybrid offspring obtained from interspecific crosses, promising selected formsF29-283-1(2) andF29-283-1(6) (seedlings from the open pollination from the family 142-x36-12 × Grossularia robusta) have been identified, which are of interest for further practical breeding of gooseberries when creating commercial cultivars of industrial type.

The complete chloroplast genomes of red currant cultivar ‘Belaya Potapenko’ and gooseberry cultivar ‘Nekrasovskij’ were sequenced and assembled for the first time. The plastomes are 157,802 bp and 157,559 bp in length for Ribes rubrum and R. uva-crispa, respectively. The R. rubrum cp genome is 243 b.p. longer. It has one more protein-coding gene ycf1, which is pseudogenized in the R. uva-crispa cp genome. In total, 56 and 54 simple sequence repeats (SSRs) were identified within the assembled plastid genomes. The SSR content of plastid genomes was assessed for the 18 Saxifragales species. Phylogeny inference based on plastome data of 18 Saxifragales revealed that all Ribes species are clustered together on the phylogenetic tree, though R. fasciculatum seems to be the most distant from the other analyzed Ribes species. The position of taxa inside the Ribes genus clade does not support the concept of its division into five subgenera. All Ribes species share approximately the same set of protein-coding genes in their plastome sequences. There was multiple independent pseudogenization of the ycf1 gene within the Ribes genus as well as other Saxifragales taxa. Negative selection was observed for most of the genes in both the Ribes group and Saxifragales. A positive selection ratio was observed only inside the Ribes group for the ycf4 and clpP genes. Together with positive selection signatures, pseudogenization events of ycfs genes perhaps reflect that these genes’ evolution was important for Ribes’ adaptation. Thus, our study provides genomic resources and valuable reference for marker development, and makes some clarifications of the phylogenomics of the Ribes genus.